Friday, September 20, 2013 -- Challenges To Living With Honour

God commands that we honour our Father and Mother.  This command may also be applied to our primary care givers.  The honour we are to give to our parents is not based on their parenting skills but on their position of authority over us.  When married we are told to honour our spouse and to keep the marriage bed pure.  God knows how adultery and sexual immorality harms us and His desire is that we fulfill our commitment to our spouse in order that our own purity is preserved.  With regards to others, we are instructed to love one another and to honour others above ourselves.  Integrity in these disciplines will be achieved when we first find respect for ourselves in the grace that God so generously pours out on us. 

In our life without God we may have retaliated in anger and caused strife when we were not treated with the respect we thought we deserved.  In our mind our worth had been devalued by what was said or done and we felt that our dignity had suffered.  We saw ourselves as deserving more respect.  We retaliated by trying to “set the person or persons right” about the honour they should have given us.  While fighting for the honour we thought we deserved, were we prepared to treat them with the same honour that we expected to receive from them?  Would we be willing to even give up our perceived rights and honour them above ourselves? 

How blessed the man you train, God, the woman you instruct in your Word, Providing a circle of quiet within the clamor of evil, while a jail is being built for the wicked.  God will never walk away from his people, never desert his precious people.  Rest assured that justice is on its way and every good heart put right. (Psalm 94:12-15 MSG)

God wants our lives to reflect His image.  Jesus said that anyone who had seen Him had also seen His Father.  He reflected His Father’s character when He went about doing good and healing everyone who was under the power of the evil one.  Are we willing, like Jesus was, to look towards the welfare of our family, our friends and those around us?  How can we honour them?  God is willing to help us be the person He created us to be -- a person who experiences honour as we honour Him and others. 

The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.  I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble.  I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.”  (Psalm 91:14-16 NLT)

©2013 Partners in Hope